Dark Journeys

The Paths of The Living Dead

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A big thank you to all who have contributed to this short “Éowyn of Rohan” season whether you did so as bloggers, commentators or as readers. All of you have been most welcome!

This is the final contribution to the season and it is a poem written by H.G Warrender. This is what she says about herself.

I am the writer of two blogs, one, a writing blog called The Eccentric Author, and the other a fandom-related blog called Middle Hyrule. I am a 15 year old homeschooler and published author, who juggles writing with fan-fiction, crochet, archery, piano, ocarina, schoolwork, video games, TV, social life, reading, and running a Lord of the Rings fanclub. My book can be purchased on Amazon,Barnes&Noble.com, or CreateSpace. You can find my fanfictions on Archive of Our Own under the username The_Kawaii_Hobbit. 

 

My lord, you are weary

Lay down your head

Go not to the land of the living dead

But if so, take me there.

I shall not be parted

When I could bring aid

I’ll not be known as the coward who stayed

When you went journeying there.

 

My lady, you are young

And honour shall come

I sense that your part has already begun

In the story of our lives.

The dead are restless

Their hearts are black

I doubt that we shall ever come back

But there my fate now drives.

 

My lord, I fear not

The things you have said

I have no fear of the living dead

My only fear’s a cage.

To stay behind

As others fall

In glorious battle, heroes all

While I succumb to age.

 

My lady, you are youthful

As I have said

And foolish not to fear the dead

So why shall you not stay?

Would you join their number?

For even here,

The battle shall reach your kingdom dear,

Nay, lady, stay.

 

I stand in the darkness

Of my own home

It feels a great burden, like none I have known

But here I have been sent.

My place at his side

Went to others instead

I was not allowed to ride out to the dead

And now my hope is spent.

Éowyn After Aragorn: What Becomes of the Broken-hearted?

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We all know the clichés that attend a broken heart.

Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned! 

We know the stories of revenge and bitterness. They have been told again and again. But what of Éowyn? We know her shame as she watched the dishonouring of her people and of their king. We know that she was always aware that she was being watched by Wormtongue. She was to be one of the prizes that he would gain amidst the ruin of Rohan, a trinket to be carried off and enjoyed by the victor in the fight. We know too that although she was a warrior her role was always confined to be dry nurse to the broken man who was Théoden.

Then Aragorn comes into her life and with him comes the awakening of hope and the possibility of happiness. She knows that he is a captain that men will follow. The arrival of the Dúnedain in Edoras, a mighty company following their lord and hero, merely confirms to her what she can already see for herself.

And then he leaves her and he will not take her with him even though she pleads with him. All the hope that has begun to awaken in her heart is dashed; both hope for her people and hope for herself. And perhaps, too, in the lonely watches of the night, she has pictured herself as a mighty queen adored by her people. Can we blame her? We may remember the moment when Frodo offered the Ring to Galadriel.

“You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

Such words do not come from nowhere as if in an unthinking manner. Galadriel, too, had allowed herself dreams of greatness. So too had Boromir. So too had Saruman. So too had Lotho Sackville-Baggins. So too had Gollum “the Great”. Dreams of greatness are common both to the mighty among us and also to the weak. It is not our dreams that distinguish us from one another but the actions that we take in consequence of our dreams. Among the list of dreamers that we have just named Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo although he triumphs gloriously over his temptation in giving his life for Merry and Pippin; Saruman betrays the peoples of Middle-earth and the Valar who gave him his mission; Lotho becomes an ally of Saruman and betrays the Shire into his hands; and we know the long and tragic tale of Gollum.

And Galadriel?

“I pass the test,” she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”

Éowyn, too, will “pass the test” eventually, but even in her darkest moments she will not betray her people and become an agent of darkness. In her deepest despair and desire for death she will remain true to the love that she has for Théoden who has been as a father to her. When, in the battle, Théoden falls under the attack of the Lord of the Nazgûl and all his household knights are slain or, through the terror of their horses, desert him, Éowyn does not desert him. And, as Anne Marie Gazzolo recently commented on this blog, she is there to be the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.

Ultimately it is not her dreams that will determine her destiny but her long practice of faithfulness to the drudgery of her life in Meduseld and the practice, too, of her love for Théoden. It is our practice that will determine our destiny although eventually we will have to surrender to a grace that is greater even than our practice, even as Éowyn will in order to fulfil that destiny. And it is that practice that will sustain us through our darkest nights as it did for Eówyn “when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in.”

The Rejection of Éowyn

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In the last two weeks Jennifer Leonard ( loveroflembas.blogspot.com) and David Rowe (@TolkienProverbs and @mrdavidrowe) have offered their reflections on the story of Éowyn of Rohan. Both have had a substantial number of readers and I want to thank them both for what they have offered. This week I would like to offer my own contribution that was prompted by “Middle Hyrule’s” comment on David Rowe’s post entitled “Why Did Éowyn Want to Die?” in which she says,”I thought she wanted to die because Aragorn didn’t love her.” As always I love responding to your comments so please let me know what you think about what I have written.

When Aragorn leads his company away from Edoras towards the Dwimorberg, the haunted mountain, and the Paths of the Dead, he leaves Éowyn behind him, his last words to her nothing more than, “Nay, lady”. And so he leaves her, “stood still as a figure carven in stone, her hands clenched at her sides” and she stumbles, as one who is blind, back to her place of lodging. She may have tasks to perform as the ruler of her people in the absence of the king but these no longer have meaning for her. In speaking to Aragorn she described them as the work of a dry nurse. They have no meaning for her. Life has no meaning for her.

Aragorn has rejected her, refusing to take her with him on the Paths of the Dead. If he had done otherwise then Théoden and Éomer would have been torn between mustering the Rohirrim to try to raise the siege of Minas Tirith and in following her upon the Paths of the Dead. Perhaps they might even have considered her to be abducted and their following would have ended in battle. Aragorn may be gripped by pain but he will not be swayed from his mission by any concern. Éowyn, too, has only one concern, and that is that Aragorn should not leave her behind. The two concerns cannot meet and so Aragorn’s leave taking is almost brutal.

In the last two weeks, Jennifer Leonard and David Rowe have spoken about Éowyn’s despair, of her desire for death, and of her eventual healing. This week I want to remain with the moment of rejection. It is this moment of rejection that brings all the unhappiness of the years of hopelessness to a head. Aragorn asks her what she fears and she replies, “A cage… To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” Those who know Byron’s poem, The Prisoner of Chillon, a telling of the story of of the imprisonment of the monk,  Bonnivard, in the 16th century, will recall that when, at last, he is set free, he has become so used to his cage, that, we are told, ” I learn’d to love despair.”

Éowyn rejects such counsel, if counsel it be. She will choose death rather than a cage. She will embrace despair, not as an act of submission, as Bonnivard did in Byron’s poem, but of defiance. This will be her response to Aragorn’s rejection. This will take her to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields at the gates of Minas Tirith.

To make a response to rejection is something that almost all of us will have to do at some point in our lives. Indeed we might say that the only ones among us who are never rejected are those who never risk themselves. The list of ways in which we might be rejected is very long indeed and each of us might make our own. From the day that we are not picked for a sports team at school to the refusal of a declaration of love and finally the rejection by our own body that will carry us no longer where we wish to go, this will be our experience at some point or other.

Rejection strips away the self that we seek to construct through the first half of life. We have to construct a self with clear boundaries as we emerge into adulthood. If we fail to do that then we will be absorbed into the selfhood of a stronger ego. If we are to find our True Self there must  first come the creation of boundaries but then later we must take leave of the boundaries in a leap of faith. Few of us are prepared to leave the security that we have made by choice even if we have become unhappy within it as Éowyn has. Rejection brutally forces us away from our constructed self. It is no leap of faith but rather a casting of the self into the void. The wonder is that the void is not an empty space but that everywhere the arms of Love await us if we can but submit to them. Before this happens to Éowyn she will pass through Hell and through Purgatory but she will find her way through.

 

Why Does Éowyn Want to Die?

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This week’s blog post in the current series of guestblogs on Éowyn of Rohan comes from David Rowe. As with Jennifer Leonard’s piece that was featured last week it ends with Éowyn’s healing journeying first with her desire to die. ‘David is the writer of ‘The Proverbs of Middle-earth’, soon to be published by Oloris Media. He tweets at @TolkienProverbs and @mrdavidrowe, and the following is an adaptation of a passage from his book.’ I am delighted that he has offered this excerpt from his work for this platform.

If you have a piece on Éowyn that you would like to include here then please send it to me in Word format using my email address mail@stephenwinter.net. Please include some detail about yourself and any links to your work that you would like me to include. 

 

‘I do not desire healing… and I do not desire the speech of living men. ‘I looked for death in battle… to ride to war like my brother Éomer, or better like Théoden the king, for he died.’

When first seen in her guise as Dernhelm, Merry shivers, perceiving in Éowyn ‘the face of one without hope who goes in search of death.’ Having disobeyed orders and ridden to war, rather than remaining in Rohan as the King’s regent, she achieves what no man could: the killing of the Lord of the Nazgûl. In doing so she rises higher than any woman, at any time, in any kingdom of Men, and yet her emptiness remains utter.

Recovering in the Houses of Healing, Éowyn feels like a prisoner: she is jealous of the dead, jealous of the now-departed host of the West, even jealous of those with a better view from their windows. How did she reach this point?

Éowyn grew up as an orphan, adopted into the King’s household but with neither mother nor adopted mother. Her lack of female role-models, alongside the restrictions that barred her from emulating the nation’s heroes (virtually all of whom, according to the Appendices, were male), left Éowyn powerless: unable to give vent to the determination, steely character, and latent greatness within her. With a spirit and courage at least the match of Éomer’s, but without the opportunity to fight for the fields of Rohan with a company of riders as he does, Éowyn lacks comradeship. She is left isolated and alone, an indomitable shieldmaiden reduced to ‘dry-nursing’ the declining King – a role she deemed ‘more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.’

The arrival of Aragorn to Edoras both sparks Éowyn back to life and plunges her into despair. As Faramir correctly diagnoses, ‘You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn… but when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle.’ Having had her love and hope of high honour and nobility exposed as vain, Éowyn withers; seeking only the honour of a valiant end she goes ‘in search of death.’ Knowing that none have ever returned from the Paths of the Dead, she begs Aragorn to take her there with him, but is refused, and instead goes into disguise in order to ride to Minas Tirith with the host of the Eorlingas.

Where will wants not, a way opens, Éowyn declares as Dernhelm, Good will should not be denied. Although these words are spoken to and for Merry, a double meaning is also plain: Éowyn is using them to justify her own disobedience. While, by quoting traditional proverbs, Éowyn shows that she is still in touch with Rohan’s philosophical tradition, she is actually being unfaithful to its wisdom. In place of the Rohirric devotion to duty is a different fearless determination: that of self-destruction. While Théoden, Éomer, and Rohan at large embody the belief that doing your duty is fundamental to moral goodness, Éowyn scorns such a perspective. ‘Too often have I heard of duty,’ she says. ‘May I not now spend my life as I will?’

Disguised as Dernhelm, Éowyn becomes free at last, but the freedom she gains is the liberty to self-harm. She can ride with the host of the Rohirrim, but her motives are not theirs. A nihilism has taken over, arguing that life carries no intrinsic value or moral purpose, and therefore can be used (or disposed of) at the individual’s whim. Éowyn has become a lonely, solitary death-seeker, surrounded by courageous, faithful men, riding bravely against hopeless odds. She is alien even to her own people; not part of a company, nor sharing in the national motivations. She derides compassion, and is a stranger to dutiful courage and the great virtues. It is therefore fitting that, when she subsequently fails in her quest for death, she meets her match in Faramir, in whom these traits are so prevalent.

Éowyn emerges from her nihilistic darkness not through being argued into submission, but by being loved. Perhaps because she recognises that Faramir is a man ‘whom no Rider of the Mark would outmatch in battle’, she is able to listen to him and he to command her respect. Faramir draws her out of despair with his company and kindness, saying Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, referring both to Aragorn’s reaction to her and to his own love. And it is as this great warrior and leader willingly exposes his vulnerable core that ‘the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it.’ The darkness departs, and she determines to marry, to become a healer, and to ‘love all things that grow’. Éowyn finally stops fighting, and Faramir is able to declare to the Warden:

‘Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.’

The Paths of the Dead. A Journey from Despair to Life .

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At the end of the Second Age the King of the Mountains swore allegiance to Isildur at the Stone of Erech. But when war against the Dark Lord came the king proved faithless for he had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years and still believed the dark to be greater than the light. And so Isildur said to him:

“Thou shalt be the last king. And if the west prove mightier than thy Black Master, this curse I lay upon thee and thy folk: to rest never until your oath is fulfilled. For this war will last through years uncounted, and you shall be summoned once again ere the end.”

The miserable story of the King of the Mountains acts as a kind of parable within The Lord of the Rings concerning the fate that awaits all who give way to the Dark believing either that their advantage lies that way, or that they have no choice, or some combination of the two. The story of Saruman is another expression of this reality and, if Sauron had triumphed, no doubt the story of the king and people of Harad and the other allies of Mordor would have been another. Isildur’s curse is not an act of arbitrary power. He simply declares what all worshippers of the Dark most truly desire; to exist in the darkness.

When Aragorn declares that he is the true king, the heir of Isildur, he calls the Dead to fulfil their oath. They must now serve him. Unlike the hapless Baldor, son of Brego the second king of Rohan, who sought to tread the Paths of the Dead in his own pride and without authority, Aragorn comes as one to whom authority has been given and so the dead must obey him. Baldor died because the way was shut “until the time comes”. The time has now come. The king has spoken and the dead must hear.

In one of his Advent reflections that you can find in his collection, entitled Waiting on the Word, Malcolm Guite calls Jesus “the king who walks alongside us disguised in rags, the true Strider.” https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/o-rex-gentium-a-sixth-advent-reflection/ This reference to Aragorn belongs to a poem inspired by the Advent antiphon,  O Rex Gentium, O King of the Nations and their desire. The Lord of the Rings is an Advent work proclaiming light in the darkness as we saw a few months ago when we heard Frodo cry out “Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!”, Hail Eärendil O Brightest of Stars! when he was lost in the utter darkness of Shelob’s Lair. https://stephencwinter.com/2016/01/12/the-dayspring-from-on-high-comes-to-the-aid-of-the-hobbits/ Advent is also the time when we long for the true king to come and heal the lands. We long for “the true Strider”. The Lord of the Rings shows us those, like Faramir, who have kept the faith, waiting for the true king and perhaps for the restoration of Númenor and maybe even the deepest reality of all, that to which Númenor, even at its most true, could only point to. It also shows us those, like Denethor, who lose faith, or those like Saruman or the King of Harad who come to believe in a perversion of the Advent hope believing the lie that declares that it is the dark that is the true reality.

Aragorn’s journey through The Paths of the Dead calling the dead to obedience and so to an end to their misery also recalls the ancient story of how Jesus went down to the dead after his death on the cross and so harrowed hell leading the dead from despair to life.

This is the journey that Aragorn now takes with the companions who follow him and he points us to the true Strider who calls us, too, to follow him through darkness into light.

 

Some Reflections on The King of Gondor

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To become a man, truly and healthily drawing upon the King archetype, it is necessary to serve an apprenticeship, serving a master and learning all that can be learned from him. Aragorn has been such an apprentice. The great fathers of his life have been Elrond of Rivendell and Gandalf the Grey but he also contested against the forces of Mordor under Ecthelion, the father of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, and under Thengel, father of Théoden, the King of Rohan. There is a passage in a letter from St Paul that speaks of such apprenticeships and their outcome.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

We live in a world in which we desire wealth and success as soon as possible.  In the words of Simba, the lion cub, “I just can’t wait to be king!” I confess that when as a young man I found myself, for a time, working on factory production lines when I thought I was destined for great things I used to fantasise about marching into a great corporate building surrounded by an entourage who hung upon my every word. I had no idea then that in working in factories alongside other workers that I was serving the kind of apprenticeship that St Paul speaks of and that it had just as much significance for my life as did my university studies.

In 1943 the pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a paper for fellow members of the conspiracy to overthrow Adolf Hitler. It was a reflection on what had been learned through 10 years of living under the tyranny of the Third Reich and asked questions about the way ahead. At its heart Bonhoeffer wrote these words:

” The ultimate responsible question is not how I am to extricate myself heroically from the affair, but how the next generation is to live.”

For Bonhoeffer the idea of responsibility was the same as the biblical idea of righteousness and it perfectly describes what Aragorn is in Tolkien’s story. Last week we drew the contrast between him and Saruman in terms of ambition. Saruman really wants to be king! Now we also see in what way Aragorn is different from Boromir. Boromir desperately wanted to be the hero of the story. He wanted to raise a banner that the whole world would flock to and march under. Aragorn wants to make room for the next generation to live. Not just to exist but to live. When the moment comes to raises his banner and to declare himself king he will do so but not in order to be the hero but in order to serve the people and the people know it.

Next week we will think about the terrible journey that Aragorn must take in order to reach the battle in time. He must tread the Paths of the Dead. And when he does so he will be followed by the Rangers of the North because they love him; he will be followed by Legolas of the Greenwood Realm and Gimli of the Lonely Mountain because they love him; and Merry would have followed him if he could, as would Eowyn of Rohan, but he would not permit them to come with him. All are willing to lay down their lives with and for him because they know that he would lay down his life for them.

It is important to know that the kind of apprenticeship, spoken of by St Paul, does not refer to a particular period of our lives. It does not mean that at some point I must serve an apprenticeship in order that I can become a master and direct the labours of others. To be an apprentice is a way of life. I choose to learn all that I can each day from what each experience can teach me. And each day I am ready to act boldly  and responsibly when called upon to do so. Aragorn is about to tread the Paths of the Dead. I have duties to perform. I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

Eowyn of Rohan: a Call for Guestblogs

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During the life of this Blog that is a slow and careful reading of J.R.R  Tolkien’s  The Lord of the Rings and my own reflections upon the story, the characters and the great themes of the book, one character has inspired many comments from readers and that is Eowyn of Rohan.

Over the years many have criticised Tolkien for what they have perceived as his “male centred” story. One might argue that Eowyn, herself, demands the attention of the men in her world. We don’t know about the women as I cannot call to mind a single interaction between Eowyn and any other woman in the story. Perhaps that is something a reader might like to reflect upon.

For a number of years now I have been wrestling with what constitutes an authentic male spiritual journey to true maturity. The Lord of the Rings has helped me greatly with this task. Now I want to reflect on the journey of one of the most significant women in Tolkien’s story and I would like to ask the help of my readers. Please offer your reflections upon Eowyn of Rohan. Certain themes come to mind as I think about her:

  • Eowyn the captive in the wasteland created by the lies of Wormtongue and the decline of Théoden.
  • Eowyn and her hopeless love for Aragorn.
  • Eowyn and her despair and her joining the Ride of the Rohirrim with Merry.
  • Eowyn, the death of Théoden and the battle with the Lord of the Nazgûl.
  • Eowyn in the Houses of Healing.
  • Eowyn and Faramir of Gondor.

If there are other themes that come to mind then please feel free to write about them. Do not feel restricted by my suggestions. They are merely guidelines. I will do some simple editing of grammar, spelling and punctuation but not of the substance of the material you write. I want to read your ideas and to learn from them. I might also include art work, photos etc.

Please send me your material in a Word document as an attachment to an email sent to mail@stephenwinter.net. My usual posts are about 600-800 words in length but please feel free to make your contribution longer or shorter. You may use a reflective style similar to my own but if you normally use another style, for example an imaginative style such as poetry or fan fiction, feel free to use that. Please include your name and any other details about yourself that you care to include. These might include website details, blogs, Facebook pages etc. I promise to include them when I post your material. I promise to acknowledge every contribution and give you some idea when it will be used. For example, if you write about Eowyn and Faramir in the land of Ithilien I may not use it for another couple of years or so.

If possible I would like to post for the first time on Eowyn in the week beginning July 25th so please endeavour to get your material to me by Friday July 22nd.

And could you please publicise my blog in your own web publishing space? I would appreciate that very much.

I am married to a remarkable woman and have two wonderful daughters emerging into adult life. I have been enriched beyond measure by each one of them. I have also enjoyed many friendships with women ever since I emerged from my adolescent shyness and still do today. I grow constantly more convinced that men and women will only achieve wholeness and maturity in good adult relationships to each other and yet this seems quite rare. Maybe together we achieve something towards this goal as we think about Eowyn. I do hope so.

With grateful anticipation,

Stephen Winter

 

Aragorn the Lover

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Halbarad, the Ranger of the North, bears a gift for Aragorn. It is a thing of mystery, “close furled in a black cloth bound about with many thongs”. And there is a message with it from Arwen, Lady of Rivendell, to Aragorn.

“The days now are short. Either our hope cometh, or all hopes end. Therefore I send thee what I have made for thee. Fare well, Elfstone!”

The final greeting of her message is one of deep uncertainty. Her “Fare Well”, if joined together, becomes a last word, a final blessing, spoken to one that Arwen does not expect to see again. When the words are separated, as they are here, they remain a word of hope. But which are they to be?

Aragorn feels their power.

“Now I know what you bear. Bear it still for me a while!” And he turned and looked away to the North under the great stars, and then he fell silent and spoke no more while the night’s journey lasted.”

So it is that we see Aragorn the lover and find that in him the lover is woven close to the warrior who has great battles to fight and the king who must unfurl the royal standard that Arwen has made for him. The man who rides in silence through the night, his mind filled with thoughts of the woman he loves, knows that his longing for her cannot be fulfilled unless Sauron be overthrown and the Ring of Power cast into the fires at the Cracks of Doom. He cannot separate these things even if he would.

All great love stories are triumphs over adversity. I have a particular love for the story of Rapunzel and the prince who first climbs the tower to reach his imprisoned beloved and then must wander the world, separated from her, his eyes made sightless by the thorns that surround the tower and the malice of the witch who wants to keep Rapunzel for herself. And I love the story of how, for love of her prince, Rapunzel climbs down those same thorn trees that have imprisoned her so long and then searches the world for him until she finds him and heals him with her tears.

In both the old German tale and in Tolkien’s story true love can only be won through great trial. And it is also the source of strength that enables the lover to triumph over all adversity. Although Eros is a word that is absent from the New Testament, replaced there by agape, a word that was a wonderful gift to the world, denoting a love that is an unbreakable commitment to the blessedness of another and a delight that they too are in the world, it was not long before the Fathers of the Church found that they could not ignore it. They discovered that Eros (in the Greek) or Amor (in the Latin) was the divine energy that will bring about the union and communion of all things. At one time there was no division between the passionate, even erotic, language of the mystics and the technical language of the theologians. The two were one and the same. They spoke of drawing the mind into the heart. Sadly we seem to live in a time when mind and heart have become separated. How we need to find a way to unite them once more!

In Aragorn the great archetypes of the King, the Warrior, the Magician and the Lover are wonderfully united. He has been the warrior lover over many years but now we see him growing into his kingship. See how Arwen, his beloved, declares him king, through the banner that she has made, even before her father does! In doing so she spurs him on to the great deeds that he will do. But he has needed the wisdom of the magicians in his life, Elrond and Gandalf, to know what task he must achieve. Eventually he will lose them and then he will have to find the magician wisdom within himself but not quite yet.

Aragorn has received a message from Elrond but it is Arwen’s words that bring about his silence. Eventually he will respond to both messages together as he must and in doing so he will be propelled onwards to the great crisis of his life and towards the union with his beloved for which he longs with all his heart.

On, Shadowfax! We must Hasten. Time is Short.

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Pippin awakes from a “swift moving dream in which he had been wrapped so long since the great ride began”. Shadowfax, the mightiest of horses,  is rushing through Anórien, the most northerly region of the land of Gondor, bearing Gandalf and Pippin towards Minas Tirith and towards war. It is the third night since Pippin looked into the Stone of Orthanc and so was forced to endure the gaze of Sauron. Now the Dark Lord believes that a hobbit is at Isengard. He gloats ravenously at him. Is this the one who has the Ring?

Sauron is so overcome by his own anticipation that he does not wait to ask further questions. He has servants who can reach Isengard swiftly and bring the prize to him. When he has the Ring there will be no further need for questions and ample time to punish the creature who has kept it from him.

And so by a lack of curiosity Sauron gives his foes just a little time for action. Gandalf siezes the time, removing Pippin from the palantir and from the place that the Dark Lord believes him to be, and rushing as fast as possible towards the place of crisis where the battle must be fought. So too do Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli; they must find their way to Minas Tirith as quickly as they can. And so too must the hosts of Rohan and messages are sent far and wide by Théoden, their king,  calling them to gather at Dunharrow. All must reach Minas Tirith in time for if the city of Gondor falls then even if Frodo is able to succeed in his mission and the Ring is unmade in the fires of Mount Doom there will be nothing to save and Frodo can go no faster than his feet can carry him and his burden will permit him. On the night on which Pippin gazes at the moon setting in the west Frodo watches it from the refuge of Henneth Anûn. He has far yet to go.

Wisdom trains us, through life and hard experience, that there are times when we can do nothing but wait; times when we must labour patiently, perhaps hoping against hope; times when we must get up again after failure and defeat; and then there times when we must grasp the slimmest of chances as swiftly as we can when they are presented to us. Gandalf has known all of these. He has laboured over two thousand years,  bearing Narya, the Ring of Fire, to keep hope alive in the hearts of the free peoples of Middle-earth and in all that time he has been forced to wait as Sauron has grown in power. He has been the captive of Saruman in Orthanc, watching helplessly as the Nazgûl seek for the Ring. He has been a beggar at the gates of Théoden, forced to endure the humiliations of Wormtongue. He has even journeyed through death after the battle with the Balrog of Moria. Now there is a moment, just the briefest of moments, when he can act and even now it may be too late.

We must live our lives with our eyes open,  watching for moments of opportunity. It may be given to a few to know that these are of great significance in the history of an age. They are like Simeon and Anna in the temple in Jerusalem looking for the coming of the Messiah. But all of us are called to be people of hope like them and while we wait for the dawning of the day we are called to do the acts of mercy in the knowledge that each one of them brings that dawn nearer. And we must do them most of all when it seems that the night is darkest.

 

Farewell (for a while) to Frodo and Sam

/ stephencwinter / 24 Comments

I began to write in this blog about the journey of Frodo and Sam from the Emyn Muil at the beginning of March in 2015 and now, about a year later, it is time to leave them where Tolkien does, at the gates of the orc tower that guards the pass of Cirith Ungol before it descends into the land of Mordor.

“The great doors slammed to. Boom. The bars of iron fell into place inside. Clang. The gate was shut. Sam hurled himself against the bolted brazen plates and fell senseless to the ground. He was out in the darkness. Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy.”

We have been on such a journey in this last year! We began with the frustration of the hobbits as they went round and round the hills of the Emyn Muil and then the capture of Sméagol and, for a time at least, his taming. Together with them we crossed the Dead Marshes and reached the Black Gate that was shut against them. Then we turned south for a time until we entered the spoiled beauty of Ithilien, Tolkien’s “dishevelled dryad loveliness.” In Ithilien we met the noble Faramir who showed the hobbits the true Gondor, born of Númenor and of the faithfulness of the Elf Friends, of Elendil and of his forefathers, Eärendil and Beren, and of his foremothers, Elwing and Lúthien. Then after an all too brief rest in the refuge of Henneth Annûn we journeyed on with Frodo and Sam and their treacherous guide into the Morgul Vale, climbed with them up the stair to Cirith Ungol and to Shelob’s Lair. There we encountered the horror of the monster that dwelt in those tunnels of darkness visible but we also saw the inbreaking of the  wondrous light of the Star Glass of Galadriel, the Morning Star of Eärendil, the Silmaril of Fëanor, and we saw Sam, the hero in the darkest moment, driving away the traitor, Gollum, and vanquishing Shelob herself. Shelob is defeated but not before she has stung Frodo and rendered him helpless. Sam takes the Ring from Frodo believing himself to be the last remaining member of the Fellowship and begins his journey towards the Cracks of Doom and the Ring’s destruction only to find that a  company of orcs has found Frodo and taken him alive into their guard tower. Frodo is a prisoner inside it and Sam is shut out.

And that is how it ends, at least for now. The door is shut. Frodo is a prisoner. Sam is shut out. I don’t blame Tolkien for stopping here. It’s as Frodo put it when he and Sam were talking about stories just before they entered Shelob’s Lair:

“You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: “Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more.”

So this post on my blog is dedicated to all who feel stuck, who feel they have reached a dead end in their lives. There is no way that Frodo and Sam can rescue themselves from this situation. Frodo is drugged and bound and soon he will be naked. Sam is one small hobbit and even if he uses the Ring it wouldn’t be long before he gets the attention of the last being in the world that he would ever want to meet. They cannot save themselves. Help will have to come to them from outside. It will come to you too. Ask for it.

This is no accident on Tolkien’s part. He wanted to tell a story in which the world was saved by the small. He believed (and so do I) that such a story was true to the Christian faith in which he believed. If you want to follow this thought further then listen to this talk by Brenton Dickieson http://apilgriminnarnia.com/2016/02/01/a-hobbits-theology-2016-pub-talk/ He puts it really well.

But now we have to leave Frodo and Sam. Next week we will be with Gandalf and Pippin once more. See you then.